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Shannon Maynard is the Director of Grameen Foundation’s skilled volunteer program, Bankers without Borders®. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for federal agency the Corporation for National and Community Service. One of the books that has been on my reading list for a while but I haven’t gotten to yet is The Coming Jobs War, by Gallup CEO Jim Clifton. As a busy working mom, I’ve read reviews and excerpts, and have promised myself to read the entire book by the end of the summer. I do know that the premise of the book, which is based on the findings of Gallup’s World Poll, is that what people in the world want most is a good job. Here in the United States that typically translates to a formal job and steady paycheck. In the developing world that includes informal jobs, but the message is the same – people want steady, reliable pay in return for a hard day’s work. Clifton argues that over the course of the next 30 years, economic force will trump political and military force in terms of determining which countries have power and influence and which do not. The top U.S. cabinet position will be the Secretary of Job Creation – not the Secretary of State or Defense.

In today’s dynamic world, the importance of volunteering – to both the recipient and the volunteer – cannot be exaggerated. Unfortunately, volunteering is often perceived as a form of charity or something that only the recipient benefits from. What is not emphasized enough is the fact that volunteers gain just as much from the experience.

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Emily Gordon is a graduate of Lehigh University, where she studied International Relations, Spanish, and Business. She spent a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina studying foreign relations and working with a human rights organization. Emily has worked with a variety of international non-profits, including interning with Grameen Foundation’s Bankers without Borders® program in 2011.

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Mobile phones can transform the way rural farmers in developing countries get information to better manage their crops and animals. Today, Grameen Foundation announced a new collaboration with MasterCard Worldwide that will develop new mobile applications for rural farmers in Colombia.

With these solutions, a smallholder farmer will be able to know the specific prices for his crops and the best weather conditions for planting and harvesting, without even having to leave his land.